 It is a weird process day for me today in Daily Fantasy Baseball because usually I am all about spending whatever I've got to do a pitcher to get to a high salary guy, get to a guy with a lot of strikeouts. We've got Garrett Cole on this slate, which usually would mean to me, I'm just gonna spend whatever I need to to jam in Garrett Cole. But for today, I feel like we've actually got Lee Wei to go a little bit lower salary to pitcher, try to find some strikeouts on the cheap and splurge at hitter. So let's dive on in, talk about that and get you set for tonight's slate. This is the FanDuel Live Q&A right here on the FanDuel YouTube, Twitch, Facebook and Twitter channels. My name is Jim Sonnis. I am a senior writer and analyst for numberfire.com here to take your questions live on air for the next 25 minutes to get you set for today's Daily Fantasy Baseball slate. As always, make sure you are subscribed to the FanDuel YouTube, Twitch, Facebook and Twitter pages and get those questions in no matter where you are watching. We'll take questions from all four of those platforms in the chat section. So put them in, we'll take them live here on air for today. Quick scheduling announcement, tomorrow we'll have our usual schedule, 4 p.m. NLB. On Thursday, we're gonna have a breakdown of Bucks Cowboys at 4 p.m. I'll be going through some props, single game DFS stuff, talking betting angles to that game. That's at 4, NLB, we have 430 that day. NLB will also be at 430 on Friday after our snake draft with myself, Brandon Goduo and JJ Zacharyston. We can get your questions in around week once, NFL DFS Slate then. But let's dive in to tonight's slate by talking to Taylor first over on Facebook. Taylor is asking top three starting pitchers for today. The top three starting pitchers for me are Max Friede. Number one, love his matchup here versus the Nationals. Friede getting enough strikeouts recently, but also suppressing hard contact, keeping balls in the ground. The Nationals, a depleted roster right now. Friede in his past 13 starts to more curve balls, has a 26% strikeout rate, low walk rate. He's awesome. So I think that Max Friede saving salary at $9,300, lets you stack Coors Field, lets you stack the Dodgers and feel good about it. So Max Friede to me is the number one pitcher. I do like Zach Gallin. I think he might be a bit of a tougher sell. Facing the Rangers for today, the Rangers offense is not good. They also don't draw a walk. So that's good for Gallin who does have a walk issue. He's always had a walk issue. Probably always will have a walk issue. So I like Gallin, 26% strikeout rate over his past eight starts and more forcing fastballs. I think he's number two. Number three is Garrett Cole. Garrett Cole, I think you can stack the Giants with him. It's kind of tough, but I think you can make it happen. So I think that Garrett Cole is number three. So top three pitchers for you Taylor are Max Friede, Zach Gallin and Garrett Cole. Let's talk to Savon. Any weather issues for today? No, we're actually good to go. There might be some issues with Wrigley. So check back on the Cubs game, but I think that one should be fine. Savon also asked best starting pitcher and stack for single entry and diffuse also asked for a single entry pitcher as well. To me, because I truly, truly, truly want to get to the Giants and the Dodgers today, I'm gonna go Max Friede for single entry. Again, I think that the matchup is good here at the Nationals. They're definitely better versus lefties and righties, but they're still not a good team given just the number of pieces they've lost, what that lineup looks like in general. I think it's a good spot to go with Friede for today. So if we're looking single entry, Max Friede is my pitcher and then Savon answering your question about stacks, I think that the Dodgers and Giants are the way to go for stacks for single entry. Savon, question about the early slate, what teams do you like there? I've not had time to research the early slate because I have to get set for NFL on Thursday. So my non-main slate research be very limited. Just looking at things very quickly. I don't feel confident in it, so I'm not gonna give a recommendations. Sorry about that, but NFL season things are just very, very compressed. Kyle, are Poo Hulse and the Wasega usable for lower sourd exposure to the Dodgers and Giants? I probably would try not to go Poo Hulse just because he will leave games early very often and that is super annoying. Sorry, Longoria, why did I say Wasega? I don't know, do I have Yankees? Anyway, Poo Hulse probably not trying to get there. As far as Longoria goes, if he plays, he's fine. He doesn't always play versus righties, but if he plays, I'd be there for sure. I think that's okay because Longoria is not one of the guys who would leave for a pinch hit or something like that. So if Longoria plays, yes, I would just not assume that he plays based on the way they've used him versus righties recently, so keep that in mind. He does play though, I'm good. And I think that Lestella is a good way to get lower sourd exposure to the Giants too, but Kyle, I do like the broad line of thinking getting lower sourd exposure to good teams. Ian Neve over on Twitch, what's up? Who's hot? Who's not? We're all hot here, Twitch. Ian Neve, we're playing some daily fantasy baseball. It's the first week at NFL. We're all hot. We're all feeling good, ready to rock for the month of September. John, how would you stack the red? So the reds are actually, I think a pretty solid option for today. Facing Adrian Sampson, don't know what their lineup will look like yet. I'm guessing Tyler Naikwin will probably be batting second for today. I think that Naikwin is really fun because I think he works as a one-off because he is lower sourd, which means I can go to him even while I am stacking elsewhere. So that's gonna be a major plus in his favor. So I would say Naikwin is going to be most likely the first guy I lock in. Check out the other numbers here for the reds. Let's go ahead and just put Naikwin in there first to see what we're rocking with from a salary perspective. You just call farmer a bit recently, but mostly versus lefties. Versus righties, farmer, let's see where he is at right now. 120 ISO versus righties, probably not quite high enough to get there. So let's go. I guess we can make this a freed lineup too. I think if I'm using freed, I'm probably trying to get to the Giants and Dodgers, but why not? Let's just roll with it anyway. Let's go with Naikwin first. Probably gonna wanna get India Vato Castellanos if I can. Let's see if we can make that work. Let's go with Castellanos. Let's go Vato. Let's put India at second base specifically. If we do that, we're at 2950 left. It's definitely a little bit dicey or not gonna be stacking the Dodgers there, but I think there's some value plays we can work with. So I think this is probably the way I'd be leaning with the reds. Let's check out Mike Moustakis and what he's been doing recently because he's been hitting the ball better than he was before. We might be able to go with him instead of India just to save a pretty healthy amount of salary. Let's go here, check out the game log for Moustakis and let's go past the, let's go four weeks-ish. If we go four weeks, 8.8% barrel rate, not a lot of hard contact. The ISO for Moustakis in the time 164. Underwhelming, I would say that he's fine if you need to save some salaries. If you wanna go with Moustakis down here, that does do quite a big difference. So if you can get to India, I'd prefer him, but if you can, Moustakis is fine as well. Jerry, good day Jim, good day Jerry. How do you feel about these teams? Kansas City, Baltimore, Boston, kinda like the Yankees, Houston, the Dodgers. I love the Dodgers. I think they're amazing. They are a top two stack for today behind just the Giants and the Giants are better because they're a course field. Outside of that, the Dodgers would be pretty good. I do like Kansas City and Baltimore. I prefer Baltimore because there are more guys on that team I actively want to use than on the, the, the Royal side of things. I do like Perez and Montesey as something that they're both in there. Yep, Montesey is batting 4-3 today. So I do like Perez and Montesey as one-offs. Edward Olivares, bat down and seventh could work too. Just harder to get to a full stack there because I don't know if I'll be able to get to Perez and Montesey from a sour perspective. Olivares more of a one-off. The Yankees facing Steven Matz. I think Matz is pretty good personally. 31% hard hit rate allowed over his past 10 starts with more sinkers, 33% fly baller, M-O-K being lower on the Yankees, Houston. Actually the Red Sox I missed. Red Sox facing Rasmussen. Don't mind that one personally. They're pretty high sourd. So again, they're not gonna be, I wouldn't put them above the giants of the Dodgers, but I'm okay with them. And finally, Houston. Houston is facing Logan Gilbert. I know the results have been rough. I know he's left a lot of hard contact. I probably still wouldn't get there because the strikeouts are good. So to me, Jerry of those options, Dodgers one, Baltimore two, Royals three. Darren best one-off on this slate. So I think it depends on where your salary is because if we're just talking about the best overall hitter on this slate, I think it's probably Brandon Belt, like dollar for dollar because he's $3,300 at Coorsfield, monster power. But you know, he's $3,300. So it's not like a, I wanna plug this guy in in order to get salary flexibility elsewhere. So I think Edward Olavarez is a pretty good one-off. I like DJ Stewart too. Both those guys are in line at batting seventh and sixth respectively. So I would say those two guys great out pretty well. Cedric Maughan's also a good one-off along with Perez and Montesey. But if you want a salary saver, I would say Stewart and Olavarez. If you want the best overall hitter, regardless of stacks, regardless of context, give me Brandon Belt. Jerry, would you stack Atlanta with free? Okay, so Palo A Spino is, this is over his past six starts with his velocity being down. 22% strikeout rates, 5% walk rates, lot of hard contact and a lot of fly balls. That's actually a pretty good recipe for stacking the braves are not low salaried. So it does mean you're using them at the expense of the giants and the Dodgers. But Jerry, let's say your goal is to find, you know, some ways to get around the popularity of the giants and Dodgers. I think the braves are actually a pretty viable option there. So Jerry, I don't mind that. I think that's actually a fine way to look at things. Got a couple of questions on Jimmy Lambert from DJ and Nick. So let's go check out Jimmy Lambert over here getting a spot start against the A's. A's are pretty good. So that's a tough way to start things off there for Lambert. I don't think it's a good matchup for him. We look at Lambert down in AAA, 32% strikeout rate, but still didn't get good results because he walked a lot of guys and that was in AAA. He also let up a lot of fly balls in a small sample in the majors. His swing strike rate is 9%. So I would rather stack against Lambert than use as pitcher. So to me, Nick and DJ, I would say avoid Lambert and DJ also asked about Eric Lauer, not enough strikeouts for me. Philly is pretty good against Lefty, so I'd be avoiding both those guys personally. Tim, is the Yankees and Giants good money line picks? Okay, so the Yankees minus 235 in the money line. They've got Cole starting. It's a really juicy number there, Tim. I don't think there's value there. I'm not betting the J's, but I also don't think there's enough there. For me to justify betting the Yankees, the Giants money line minus 220. They're at course to yield. Logan Webb is pretty good. If you made me choose, I'd probably go the Yankees because they're at home, but I think that both those numbers too steep for me to actually pay them, Tim. So personally, I will be staying away. Diffuse, Royals stack are one-offs. I prefer probably one-offs. I think you could go with like a three-player stack of let's actually build this out here. Let's go with Olivares. I'm on the reds, that's why. Let's go with Olivares. Let's go with Mondisi. Let's put him at second base and let's put Perez at catcher slash first base. We do that. We're definitely not like saving salary here. You could probably go Michael Taylor, Michael A. Taylor, sorry, $2,500. We've got Santana, not as good against lefties. Ben and Tendi, meh, meh, meh. Could go hard hit wit, I guess, if you wanted to. He's pretty good. I'll put wit in the outfields. I have Mondisi at second base. Do that 30, 31.75, that actually isn't bad. So I would say they're better for one-offs diffused, but I also think that you could justify a stack in the whether it be a three-player stack with Olivares, Mondisi, and Perez, or tossing in Merrifield, making it a four-player stack. Or four-player stack. Mike, can we stack the rays if they are unpopular for today? The rays are facing Eduardo Rodriguez. I think Rodriguez is pretty good. I know he's had some really bad starts, but I think he's a good pitcher. He does suppress hard contact. He gets strikeouts. The rays will strike out. Not as good against lefties as they are against righties. So personally, the rays not on my radar for today. DJ, would you go to Jackson Coar, Alexander Wells? No, they don't get strikeouts. Hard pass for me on both those. Kevin is asking, are the braids and giants good stacks? I love the giants there, my number one stack for today. Kevin, definitely on board there. The braids think we're a good under-the-radar stack. Let me check their implied total to see if it's higher than I thought it would be. So if we're talking about them being under the radar, probably best to make sure they're actually gonna be under the radar first. And they have the second highest implied total. So they're not gonna be under the radar. Actually, the Dodgers, where are they at? Are they not in the board? Okay, they got taken out the board because the Dodgers starters them out. Doesn't mean Mitch White starting for, not starting, but being the bulk reliever for the Dodgers. But I think that maybe this keeps people off the Dodgers a bit, like they still gotten buzzed today from what I've seen. So they're not gonna be under the radar, but maybe that does keep some people off the scent. But I do like the braids and do like the giants. Siobhan, if I am making more than one entry today, shall I load them all up with San Francisco and the Dodgers or are they consistent? So they are consistent or shall I switch it up? So it depends on how many you're going Siobhan. Like if you're going 10 entries, you can differentiate there. If you're going two, I would probably use the same pitcher and go with the same stacks and just change which players used within those stacks because to me, I don't wanna differentiate if I'm just doing like two lineups or three lineups. I would rather just give myself more chances at hoping I hit it right and hitting it that way. That's my way of playing because I am okay burning it all down for one night and just missing on everything. But I think that for me, that that is probably the better way to play things. So if you're just doing like two or three lineups, I would say keep the same pitcher, keep the same stacks and just change which players you use within that construction. Siobhan, do you like Oakland, Chicago as a game stack? So it's Caprellian starting for the A's. I don't like stack quote unquote, well, I don't feel the need to stack a lot of games in baseball just because it's not as dependent on a shootout to go really high. Other thing is that it's a cooler temperature for today, 66 degrees. So I think that the A's are fine individually. I wouldn't actively try to stack that game up though. That's where you're looking at that one. And then Siobhan, I think a lot of people would fade the San Diego game later on tonight. I would not stack the angels against Snell. I know he's had some issues and the Padres are fine, not great against Lefty's, not the best park factor either. So I'm okay being lower on that one too. Kenneth, how do you feel about Logan Webton Knight's sinker, slider pitcher? So I think he's really good. He's a really good pitcher. And I was kind of hoping he wouldn't have been as high a salary as he wound up being. He is $9,700 I think, which is just, it's really high. So that's a bit of a bummer because I was at least interested in potentially using him as a pitcher, but then I saw a salary be 97, kind of got scared off. That's probably going to scare other people off too. So I think you could justify Logan Web because he's really good. If you look at his numbers here without accounting for park factor, 28% strikeout rate, 2.93 skill interactive ERA, a lot of ground balls, facing a bad offense. I think you can use him tonight Kenneth as a way to differentiate and maybe the highest salary scares people off. But if we're talking about like without thinking about things, without considering popularity, I wouldn't get there just because of salary. But I think that you have a window to get there because people will probably avoid him as I initially did due to the high salary. Arasco is asking Mets, Marlins, Moneyline thoughts. Again, I haven't researched that game because it's not on the main slate. So I'm not going to be able to give super great insights on that one. Jerry, so if I play Ozzie, Riley, Swanson and Freed, should I go with a two player Kansas City stack and a two player Baltimore stack and a one off to have exposure? I would try to concentrate more Jerry. So pair things down. I would say if you go with Riley Swanson and Ozzie, you're probably spending a lot of salary. I would say go with like a four player oil stack or a four player royal stack. Both those teams are pretty low salary. So you do have ways to get around that and make that work. So I would say Jerry, pick two teams. Keep the braids as one stack but then pick either the Orioles or the Royals as your second stack there to keep things more concentrated. Also from Jerry, do you believe in Jacob Oderizzi? Not really. Let's see here. Where are the numbers on him? Okay. So this is Oderizzi over his 11 starts more splitters, 19% strikeout rate. I know he's facing a high strikeout team and he's at home. There are not no strikeouts there. DJ, would you rather stack against Gilbert Oderizzi, Hap or Knable? Knable's an opener, so he won't be out there very long. Or Chi Chi Gonzalez, by the way, the Cubs put out their lot. Okay, so I'd rank a stack against Chi Chi Gonzalez first because he's facing the Giants at Korsfield. So rather stack against Gonzalez first, Hap would be second. Facing the Dodgers, Dodgers, really good team. Hap has still been struggling even though he's had some good matchups. He did well against the Pirates. But that's the Pirates, Dodgers are a bit different. So stacking against Gonzalez first, followed by Hap. And then I really don't want to stack against Gilbert. Again, I know the results are bad. I know the hard contact is bad, but I believe in the skills, believe in the strikeout rates. So I'd probably go with the Mariners versus Oderizzi next up. Kyle, do you like a Gallon, Dodgers, Giants lineup or a freed Kansas City, San Francisco lineup more for single entry? That's a good question. Kyle, I feel like Gallon probably won't be on a lot of rosters. The problem is I do think that there is a decent gap between freed and Gallon. So what I might try to do is go with freed, use some of the lower salary Giants, like Tommy Lestela, if he winds up being there, I haven't seen a lineup yet for the Giants. Let's refresh one more time here to see if it's out. It is not. But if you go Tommy Lestela, let's just do this here, why not? We're here, let's party. Under the assumed lineup here for the Giants, let's go with Lestela. Hope you've had seconds. Might not, but let's see. Let's put him there. Let's go Branden's. Let's get Belt in there. Oh, they didn't keep it. Okay, let's put Crawford in there. And let's put Posey in there. If we do that, we're at 32.75 left. I think you might be able to get some Dodgers in there. It does mean there's no Will Smith, which is a bummer because 32.75 or you can't use catcher slash first base. Maybe we get Longoria in there. Let's see what his salary is. Longo is 31. So you could go take out Posey, put in Longo. Then you can go with Will Smith. Maybe you can make that one work. I would say at least make an attempt. Once the Giants lineup is out, once the Dodgers lineup is out, to get both the Giants and Dodgers in there. My preferred route for single entry Kyle is getting in both the Giants and Dodgers if you can make it work. If you can't, I would say Freed, Kansas City San Francisco is probably still the preferred route there. Savan, I stacked up Boston yesterday. Won't do that again. Thinking about San Francisco stack and a Boston stack. Oh, you slacked on them. Okay, my bad. I misread there, Savan. So Boston is facing Rasmussen again. I think that's actually an okay option, Savan. I'm not opposed to that. Rasmussen doesn't get a lot of strikeouts, does let up a lot of hard contact. Let's check out what the results have looked like for him recently. Guess what it's gonna do? Oh, it actually went through our page. How about that? Let's party. Let's get rid of Lambert there. Don't want that tab open. And results in this five starts is a five. Yeah, so the results been very good, but did you see Boston last time out in that game? 30% our day rate. That's actually pretty good. Okay, play discipline numbers, 17.6% swinging strike rate. What on earth? What do you do? Okay, so the pitch mix was pretty similar. Velocity was good. Maybe that's it. Anyway, I actually don't, I know that the results been good, but I don't think it's like the most terrible idea to consider stacking Boston and see what happens. So I'm not opposed, Savan, I think that's fine. Julius, top two pitchers for tonight. I would say it's gonna be Freed and Gallon. I think that I'm very close to putting Cole above Gallon and saying, go with Cole and use the mid tier slash lower salary giants and then going to the Orioles for that second stack. So for me, I would say it's Freed and Gallon, but I'm very, very close to going Cole over Gallon. You could talk me either way. I think they're in the same tier, but I feel pretty good putting Freed number one. DJ, stack the Rockies. No, I wouldn't personally just because Logan Webb's so good. He's disgusting, man. This is again, this is an 11 start sample since he returned from the IL. 20% fly ball rate, 28% strikeout rate. Not a lot of walks, 2.93 skill interactive ERA. The Rockies aren't very good against righties, so I know they will be less popular than usual because it's a tough matchup and I know it's course field, but as a Logan Webb believer, I am okay. I am okay not being in on the Rockies for today. Jerry says, okay, good thought process. So in a large field, how would you stack Atlanta, Baltimore, Kansas City with Rodriguez's pitcher? I know I said I probably wouldn't stack against Rodriguez because I do like him. I'm also not as itchy to use him as my pitcher. I'm pretty sure he just faced the raise recently. I could be imagining this. Yeah, he just faced the last time out. So I think that because they just saw him, I'm okay not getting there personally. So I respect him a lot, but I probably won't be using him today as a pitcher just because they did see him recently. But if we look at guys, like let's say you want to go gallon, gallons around the same size as Rodriguez, I would say if you're going with Atlanta, load up on the studs, get in Freddie Freeman in there, assuming that he's in the lineup for today, go over here, check out the braised lineup. Freeman is in there. So I would say get the studs if you're going gallon, get Freeman in there, get all these in there. And if I had to choose, I would probably say Riley and then Duvall or Soler. Let's see who's the lower salary. That's a stupid cop out, but like whatever, you know, it's fine between Soler and Duvall. Let's go Duvall. Okay, so let's go Duvall over Soler. So the braised stack would be Freeman, Albee's, Riley and Duvall and then use the value options on Baltimore and Kansas City. Mike says, thank you. Now it's win this money. I agree, Mike. Let's go win some money and start this day off, right? Build our bankroll before NFL season starts. Get a home run call from DJ. Okay, DJ's home run calls Juan Soto basing off with Max Fried. So DJ is rebelling against our top pitcher for today. Okay, DJ, I like it. Trevor Story, Charlie Blackman and Matt Mearling. Okay, so he's going into the Rockies here with Story and Blackman facing Logan Webb. The one thing I would say there, DJ, is you're targeting a lot of guys who get ground balls. Webb is a big ground ball pitcher as is free. So I try to find some guys who let up some fly balls. My home run calls for today on the solo shot were Brandon Belt and DJ Stewart. I think I'm okay sticking with those just because Stewart wound up batting sixth, I believe for today. So I think that that's okay. And I am good at that one. And Belt's probably gonna be at a good spot in the order for the Giants. Let's refresh here one more time and see if the Giants lineup is out, it is not yet. Okay, so no Giants lineup, no Dodgers lineup. I feel like they're conspiring against us to make sure there's no Reds lineup. Of course there's not. So the lineups we actually want to stack are actually not available for today. We do have the Orioles and the Royals. So we can look at those. Yeah, Olivares, let's check out the Orioles over here. And see if we can find any inspiration within this lineup. I think Stewart's gonna be the main primary lock. Looks like Savan wants a Jorge Soler home run today. Miduit, no objections here, Savan, I think that's fine. Let's go over to the Orioles, check out some salaries and put Stewart in there first because I like the salary on him at $2,500. Okay, Mullins, no Mancini for today. Mount Castle, 219 ISO versus Righties, Santander has been hitting the ball a lot better recently. All those guys that were a bit higher salary, let's check out Austin Hayes and his numbers versus Righties, 151 ISO, 38% fly ball rate though, can get some steals. I want to get Mullins in there. I know he's not like low salary, but he's fine. Let's check out Jorge Mateo as well. 140 ISO, five stolen bases. That's not terrible. The results aren't great, but that's fine. So I think that if you're trying to jam in all your Dodgers and all your Rockies, get Mateo in there and then I'm probably going Mount Castle by a hair over Santander. But I think that the first two guys that lock in for an oil stack would be Stewart and Mullins. Mullins is too good for me to pass up despite the salary. Okay, let's finish up here with Jerry's homerun calls. He's got Ozzy Albies, love it. Brandon Belt, love it. Ben Intendi against the Lefty. Then he wants Mount Castle, I'm pretty sure Mount Castle's Jerry's boy. I like Mount Castle. I think that's a good call there. And then Kyle Stieger facing Jacob Urizi. I think that's definitely a viable spot for today. Again, my homerun calls, Brandon Belt, DJ Stewart, going yard for tonight. That is all the time that we have here for today on the FanDuel Live Q&A. As mentioned though, make sure you are subscribed because we've got a lot of good stuff coming up later on this week. We have got the Bucks Cowboys preview coming up on Thursday. We have the Snake Draft coming up on Friday to get you set for week number one. That is still going to be an addition to MLB. MLB will still be here four o'clock tomorrow, 4.30 on Thursday and Friday. So make sure you're subscribed wherever you're watching and swing back here once again at 4 p.m. tomorrow. If you've got more questions for me, I am on Twitter at Jim Sonnis, J-I-M-S-A-N-N-E-S. Big thank you to Joy Affleck, our video producer for running the video side of things here today. Thank you Joy, as always. And thank you to everyone for tuning in and asking great questions as always. Win some money tonight, as Mike said. We'll talk to you once again tomorrow. This has been the FanDuel Live Q&A.